14 February PAE 84 - St. Louis Lantern, Editorial, Mrs. Bridget Malhounie
The Saint Louis City of Light is weathering one of her darkest hours yet—and this darkness comes from the very hands of her citizens themselves. In great arrogance many of our leaders, with many following behind, have forgotten the very reason that we left the safety of the Equator regions and came out here in the first place. It was said that we came to reclaim the darkness—to bring the light of civilization back into these lands. But in times of trial we have proven ourselves to be little better then the beasts that stalk outside of our borders. We came with promises of education and enlightenment—all we have brought is ignorance and hate. The Nightmen Registration Act is the most barbaric example of our forgetfulness and our weak moral compasses. An entire culture, spanning many tribes and thousands of miles of land, has been threatened with imprisonment, slavery and death for the unforgiveable sin of being born ‘uncivilized’ in our eyes. This act seeks to uproot them from their homes, destroy their families and turn them into pawns—and when they resist this evil act they are viewed as warmongering and the most dangerous type of savage. The Nightmen have taken our barbaric advances and they have responded as a real civilized entity would do. They have formed a Senate—not to seek war on British North America but to form a voice that cannot be shoved aside. Their actions were not seditious to King Edward VIII. I was a guest at their first meeting in St. Joseph. They do not wish war with the British Empire—Hekration, as their leader, swore that the Senate would take no action that would ultimately spell the doom of them all. But this horrendous act continues to push forward like an advancing train and the Nightmen are being forced into a corner. They want what every other sentient being, even the most simple of animals, wants. They wish the right to live as free beings and to raise their children in safety with the promise of a brighter tomorrow for them. The Nightmen at the Senate saw the wisdom of attempting to form a new future for us all—a future not built on the past stones of violence and bloodshed but on the potential for collaboration between their clans and our cities—a collaboration that could change our world for the better. In return for their attempts at seizing a brighter tomorrow they have been treated as the worst kind of traitor. Some of their leaders, prominent citizens and Heroes of this very city, have been arrested and tossed into jail without any kind of due process or even the barest hints of the justice system in action. Others are hunted and only steps taken by other Cities of Light are preventing a similar fate from befalling them. Who, I beg of you, is the real savage here? People who are attempting to find diplomatic ways to defend their traditional homes and cultures, preserving the only thing that they can pass down to their children? Or the people who are running the streets of St. Louis, attacking anyone that they think might be a Nightman? And in all of this chaos we have forgotten a simple fact. If we allow our government to lock up the Nightmen simply for being uncivilized who will the next group they target be? Will they decide that slavery was too hastily abolished during the Rise and that that abomination should be re-established next? Will they decide that a caste system must be installed to keep order and begin to lock our cities into grids, banishing the factory workers to their ghettos and separating the rich from the poor? Will the Church of England begin their heretic hunts again, banishing anyone who does not agree with their religion into the Dark? If one group of our people is allowed to be molested and no one raises a finger to assist them then all of us are a target. If we tell the government, even once, that such an action is acceptable then they will assume that it will always be acceptable. If we turn our back on this wickedness a single time then that wickedness will grow until we are all consumed by it. If no one stands up to aid the Nightmen in their hour of persecution then who will be left to stand and aid us in ours? Mrs. Malhounie